They Are Not Here

I’m a really big fan of movies featuring aliens. Especially ones that scream and drip stringy spit strings. I’ve even read several books about aliens that I really enjoyed. But can we PLEASE can the bullshit about aliens visiting Earth? They have not, and here’s why. Scientists have observed several Earth-like planets in other systems in our galaxy—planets with the potential to support life (N.B.: the potential only; no one is claiming that life exists there). The closest one we’ve found so far is only 10.5 light years away. So close! Maybe a highly intelligent, technologically advanced alien civilization has evolved there, and they’ve visited us? Well, let’s see. Our fastest spacecraft travels at a speed of about 62,100 km/h—about 0.0000576% of the speed of light. Let’s say our far more advanced alien friends have developed spacecraft that can travel one thousand times faster than that. How long would it take them to get here? About 18,230 years. Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say our alien friends are so adventurous that they’re willing to commit the time, resources, money and individuals required for that kind of journey. Once they arrived, would they make absolutely no attempt to contact us other than butchering some cattle at midnight and stomping weird patterns into our wheat fields? I don’t think so. I think they’d fly their unbelievably immense spacecraft straight to the largest city on the planet, insist on meeting the most important people there, and proceed to blow the minds of every person on Earth. That’s what I think they’d do. Or harvest us, of course. And please don’t start with, "But the ancient Egyptians must have needed the help of advanced aliens to build those pyramids!" What you’re doing there is simply taking the credit away from those amazing people who performed that amazing feat. Besides, if the aliens were that advanced, would they have shown the Egyptians how to build the Burj Khalifa? Yes. Would they have shown them how to put a bunch of stone blocks in a big pile? I don’t think so.